1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a dispensing inspection technique, and particularly, to a technique that determines whether dispensing is correctly performed in dispensing inspection with high reliability.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a dispensing pharmacy or the like, medicines are dispensed (picked) on the basis of a medical prescription issued by a doctor.
In this regard, in the dispensing pharmacy, after performing dispensing on the basis of the medical prescription, a dispensing inspection process (medicine dispensing inspection) of confirming whether the dispensing has been unmistakably performed according to the medical prescription with respect to the types and numbers of medicines is performed.
In general, such dispensing inspection is performed by confirmation based on visual observation of a pharmacist different from a pharmacist who dispenses medicines.
That is, for example, the pharmacist different from the pharmacist who dispenses medicines confirms names of dispensed medicines written on a rear surface or the like of a press through package (PTP) sheet by visual observation, and confirms the number of PTP sheets and the number of fractional medicines by visual observation to detect the number of medicines.
Thereafter, the pharmacist confirms whether the medicine names of the dispensed medicines and the number of the medicines suitably match the content of the medical prescription.
As described above, since the dispensing inspection currently depends on visual observation of a pharmacist, it cannot be said that the dispensing inspection is sufficient to prevent dispensing accidents. Further, the dispensing inspection gives a big load to the pharmacist.
In order to solve this problem, various devices that perform dispensing inspection have been proposed.
For example, JP2013-214170A discloses a medicine inspection system that performs dispensing inspection by capturing an image of a medicine that is an inspection target and analyzing the captured image.
In the medicine inspection system disclosed in JP2013-214170A, a color of a binding tool such as an elastic band is decided for each number of medicine sheets of an inspection target medicine. Further, the inspection target medicine that is a dispensing inspection target is bound by a binding tool of a color which is decided based on the number of medicine sheets, and a surface on which a barcode of each number of medicine sheets is shown is placed on a mounting table to face a camera. Then, an inspection target medicine placed on the mounting table is imaged, a medicine name of the inspection target medicine is detected from a barcode of the captured image, and the number of medicine sheets of the inspection target medicine is detected from a color of the binding tool to detect the number of medicines.
In another aspect of the medicine inspection system disclosed in JP2013-214170A, by measuring the height of the inspection target medicine placed on the mounting table instead of the color of the binding tool, the number of medicine sheets is recognized to detect the number of medicines.
Further, in the medicine inspection system disclosed in JP2013-214170A, there are an aspect in which an inspection target medicine is placed on the mounting table with a surface on which a barcode of a medicine sheet is displayed being directed upward to perform imaging of the inspection target medicine from an upper side of the mounting table, and an aspect in which a mounting table is made of a transparent material and an inspection target medicine is placed on the mounting table with a surface on which a barcode of a medicine sheet is displayed being directed downward to perform imaging of the inspection target medicine from a lower side of the mounting table.
In JP2013-214170A, according to the aspect in which the imaging is performed from the lower side of the mounting table, since a distance between the surface on which the barcode of the medicine sheet is displayed and a camera can be set uniformly regardless of the number of medicine sheets included in the inspection target medicine, it is possible to constantly acquire an image obtained by capturing the barcode with high accuracy, which is focused on the surface on which the barcode of the medicine sheet is displayed.